The Lambert Trophy was an annual award given to the best team in the East in Division I FBS (formerly I-A) college football . In affiliation with the Metropolitan New York Football Writers (founded 1935), the Lambert Trophy was established by brothers Victor A. and Henry L. Lambert in memory of their father, August V. Lambert. The Lamberts were the principals in a distinguished Madison Avenue jewelry house and were prominent college football boosters.
18-626: Lambert Trophy may refer to: Lambert-Meadowlands Trophy , and the Lambert Cup, annual awards given to the best team in the East in the various divisions of American college football Jack Lambert Trophy , an annual award given by the Touchdown Club of Columbus to the top American collegiate linebacker Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with
36-612: A member of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). † Now a member of the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). ^ Now a member of Division III . † Now a member of the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). ‡ Now a member of Division II . ^ Discontinued football NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision The NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision ( FCS ), formerly known as Division I-AA ,
54-646: A member of the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). † Now a member of NCAA Division III . * No longer eligible to win Lambert Trophy NOTE: The Ivy League, and until 1997, the Patriot League, do/did not participate in the NCAA Division I Football Tournament. † Now a member of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). ‡ Discontinued football ‡ Now
72-590: Is the second-highest level of college football in the United States, after the Football Bowl Subdivision . Sponsored by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the FCS level comprises 129 teams in 13 conferences as of the 2024 season . The FCS designation is relevant only for football; members of the subdivision compete in NCAA Division I in all other sports. From 1906 to 1955,
90-626: The Big East Conference was a football conference, members of that conference outside of the "East" were also made eligible if at least half their schedule was against Lambert-eligible teams. A set of parallel trophies collectively known as the Lambert Cup use to be awarded to teams in Division I FCS (formerly I-AA), Division II, and Division III. The Metropolitan New York Football Writers, owned and operated by American Football Networks, Inc., took
108-579: The "Eastern championship", the Lambert Trophy, voted on by a panel of sports writers in New York, became the de facto conference championship for those schools. Since 1936, there have been 19 different winners in Division I-A/FBS. To be eligible for the Lambert Award, a school must be located in the "East." Teams in the "East" were originally interpreted as being north of Washington D.C. and east of
126-550: The NCAA had no divisional structure for member schools. Prior to the 1956 college football season, NCAA schools were organized into an upper University Division and lower College Division . In the summer of 1973 , the University Division became Division I , but by 1976, there was a desire to further separate the major football programs from those that were less financially successful, while allowing their other sports to compete at
144-565: The administration of the Lambert Meadowlands Awards back from the New Jersey Sports & Exhibition Authority in 2011. As of 2024, plans were announced to revive the Lambert Trophy and begin awarding it for the 2024 season. The following teams: Boston,Temple, Navy, Army,Buffalo, West Virginia,Pittsburgh, Rutgers,Pennsylvania State,UMass,UConn and Syracuse will have automatic eligibility for The Lambert Trophy. ^ Now
162-533: The creation of Division I-AA appeared to backfire; rather than serve as a home for the smaller or less competitive football programs of Division I, it created a pathway for football-playing Division II schools to join Division I without the burden of funding a major football program. Division I-AA still had just 50 members when the four-year deadline set in January 1978 expired, forcing 41 schools that did not meet I-A criteria to reclassify to I-AA. Some successfully appealed
180-543: The decision, including eight members of the Mid-American Conference along with Cincinnati , a football independent at the time. Thus I-AA membership hit an early peak of 91 in 1982, before settling down into the 80-90 range for the next several years. The next big increase in Division I-AA membership came after the January 1991 NCAA convention voted to require an athletic program to maintain all of its sports at
198-457: The last four years. Division I football schools satisfying #1 and either #2 or #3 also had to maintain eight sports overall. Schools failing to meet either #2 or #3 could still qualify for I-A if they maintained twelve sports overall. (NOTE: the NCAA, at the time, governed male sports only; women's teams did not count toward these totals). Of 144 schools participating in Division I football in the 1977 season, 79 were expected to qualify for I-A, with
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#1732859600757216-540: The new additions, membership in I-AA hit a new high of 118 in 1993. The subdivision stabilized thereafter, maintaining at least 120 members from 1997 onward. Membership peaked at 130 in 2022 before settling at the current 129. NCAA Division I-A and NCAA Division I-AA were renamed as NCAA Division I FBS and NCAA Division I FCS prior to the 2006 season. The FCS has held a post-season playoff to award an NCAA-sanctioned national championship since its inception in 1978. The size of
234-498: The remaining 65 relegated to I-AA. But because the NCAA allowed four years for criteria #2 and #3 to be met, just eight schools (seven from the Southwestern Athletic Conference , a league of HBCUs that had just moved to Division I in 1977) opted for Division I-AA for the 1978 season. Meanwhile, another 35 reclassified from Division II to Division I-AA, including four entire conferences. Thus, at least initially,
252-530: The same divisional level by the 1993 season. In order to comply, 28 Division I schools with football programs at the Division II and Division III levels were forced to upgrade their teams to the Division I level, and all of them (at least initially) chose Division I-AA as their new football home. At the same time, the number of football scholarships allowed in I-AA was reduced from the original 70 to 63, effective in 1994; it has remained at that number ever since. With
270-502: The time the “Lambert Trophy” was established in 1936, major schools in other regions of the country had formed their own leagues (i.e., SEC , Big Ten , Big Eight , Pacific Coast Conference , etc.) and Division I FBS (formerly I–A) schools located in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions remained independent , with the exception of the 1954 formation of the Ivy League . Emblematic of
288-475: The title Lambert Trophy . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lambert_Trophy&oldid=702129364 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Lambert-Meadowlands Trophy By
306-424: The top level. Division I-AA was created in January 1978, when Division I was subdivided into Division I-A and Division I-AA for football only. The initial criteria for a program's admittance to I-A included (1) scheduling 60% of its games against other I-A teams, and either (2) having a 30,000-seat stadium and an average attendance of 17,000 for one year in the last four, or (3) drawing an average of 17,000 over
324-586: The western boundary of Pennsylvania, but has sometimes been expanded to include teams located in New York , New Jersey , Massachusetts , Pennsylvania , Maryland , Virginia , West Virginia , Delaware and the District of Columbia (although there are no FBS teams in Delaware nor Washington D.C., there are teams that compete at lower levels that can win the various Lambert Cup awards for their levels). Additionally, while
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